(Newser)
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Hey remember that time, lo those many weeks ago, when most Americans believed a terror attack would hit the Sochi Olympics? You could hardly blame them; there were ominous reports of approaching black widows and evacuation plans as important people predicted doom. But a funny thing happened: Nothing. "It turned out that the most terrifying image from Sochi was the look of disgust" on Ashley Wagner's face, observes CNN security analyst Peter Bergen. It was just the latest example "of hyperventilating hyperbole of the doomsday terrorism prognosticators."

In November, GOP Rep. Mike Rogers said al-Qaeda "poses a bigger threat" than before 9/11, a statement Bergen believes "defies common sense." The US has decimated al-Qaeda, while dramatically improving American security and intelligence capabilities. A much-discussed 2004 book argued that "a nuclear attack on America in the decade ahead is more likely than not." Looks like "not" won out. "It's relatively easy to say the sky is always falling," Bergen writes, because when it doesn't, "doomsday prognosticators are rarely held to account. … they are too busy warning of the next catastrophe." Click for his full column.

Makes me wonder how long this War on Terror will last. Russia has been dealing with militant Islam for longer then we've been a country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagestan#History Also makes me wonder what vested interest the "sky is falling!" types here have in keeping a War on Islam(ic) Terrorism going in perpetuity. I think Putin is looking at us in bemusement over our response to 9/11. We got the guys who did it, decimated the ranks of Al Qaeda, probably should've left Afghanistan by now (& I'm betting we're out of there early next year, Karzai won't sign a deal & I doubt their new leader will after 2015). Yet we're acting like scared children crying "Watch out! Islamic terrorism coming! You betcha!" about Sochi. Pathetic.